The Wrackspurt Theory of Temporal Grace
by MomotsukiNezumi
Summary: After storming off in a rage after arguing with his friends during the Horcrux hunt, Ronald Weasley reflects on his life, the second war, and the painful past, turbulent present, and uncertain future. Luna Lovegood, before her capture, ponders a question at Hogwarts. What if...? When they made the wish, they never truly expected it to be answered. But it was, so now what?
1. Chapter 1: Rewinding the Clock

**When I wrote "The Tarnished Knight and the Fairy Princess", I wrote it purely for my own amusement, and the idea that Ron and Luna, being rather lonely people in their childhood, would perhaps have been good friends. **

**When I finished the story, I received a message stating that the sender wanted to see more of their time together, and from that message, coupled with my own love of time-travel stories, created this story.**

**I've been fascinated with time-travel since my childhood, when the concept of the Time-Turner gave me the desire to see the glory of time and all its many alternate streams and alternate destinies written down. I've read many time-travel stories since then, as well as seen many films on the subject. It's really very interesting to me. **

**However, I've very rarely seen either Ron or Luna actually be the ones who go back in time themselves, as it's usually Harry or Hermione who are written as time-travelers. Given how they actually _were _time-travelers on _The Prisoner of Azkaban_, I can't complain by any means, but it left me frustrated that no one seems to write a story, finished or not, when Ron or Luna go back that lasts more than a chapter or two. **

**So, in honor of those time-travel stories that so handily captured my interest, I've decided to try writing a time-travel AU where Ron and Luna go back in time from the events of _The Deathly Hallows_ to another time period, likely their childhood. I'm not quite sure which time to "drop them off in", to be honest. So, I'll see how you lot respond to this prologue first, and if it's good enough for you, I'll hold a poll, tally up the votes and write up the next official chapter soon. **

**Enjoy, and feel free to criticize and comment, but please, for the love of Dobby, NO FLAMING. Flaming will only be used to fuel the Fiendfyre that burned up the "remnant room" of the Room of Requirement. **

* * *

Ron Weasley was mad.

No, he wasn't mad, he was _livid. _When he had agreed to come along on this insane hunt for Horcruxes, he'd never thought it would get this bad. No proper food, no decent sleeping hours, hours to put up all the damn secrecy spells and security charms, no time to rest because all the bloody stupid Death Eaters wouldn't stop looking for them. Damn You-Know-Who, damn the stupid Death Eaters, damn everyone, everything, all of it that went and decided to dump this much crap on the wizarding world.

And the Horcruxes, oh _damn _the stupid things to oblivion. He'd never thought he'd come to detest a word that much, but he was wrong. So very, very wrong. The stupid things took up all of their time, and they'd only found one. One. stupid. Horcrux. The damn thing was gaudy, uglier than any lumpy old maroon sweater his Mum had ever knitted for him, all gold, and covered in oversized emeralds, and far too clunky. The "S" on the front was mocking him, he just knew it. Of all the stupid bloody bits of You-Know-Who's soul to find, it just _had _to be the one with that represented Slytherin, in all its mocking, flaunting, bigoted glory. He hated it, he hated it more than he'd ever hated anything, even all the taunts he'd ever had to endure in his entire life.

It had hated him too, he knew that much. The moment he put on the icy locket, the metal seemed to burn and smart his skin, and if he wore it at night, sometimes he'd hear things, horrible voices that said equally horrible things, mocking taunts about his family, the state of his clothes, his money issues, his problem with being the youngest Weasley brother, how he'd always been, and always would be, in the shadow of Harry Potter...

He'd tried to ignore it before, but it never worked. The horrible, oily voices would slink away into his dreams too, invading his mind at night to fill his imagination with twisted parodies of reality. Nightmares didn't even _begin _to cover what he'd seen. He could still see them now, floating across his mind's eye like some sort of grisly circus act: the Burrow, burning away, sparks flying up into the night sky like demonic faeries, as the creaking and moaning of the collapsing building sounded like the screams of the dying...his family, pale-faced and frightened, trying desperately to make ends meet in the worst dreams, the ones where You-Know-Who ruled over the world with an iron fist...Harry and Hermione, tortured by Death Eaters, held at wandpoint and forced to endure an endless stream of magical agonies for the sick amusement of the Inner Circle...

He couldn't take it. There was only so much he could take before he cracked. He had a limit, he wasn't superhuman.

So he'd left. He'd left, and he hadn't looked back, at least not until he was far enough away that he didn't have to see their faces; he'd caused himself enough guilt as it was, leaving and making Hermione upset. She'd begged him to come back, shouting as if he'd never return.

He'd never had anyone that desperate to keep him around before, no one except Harry and Hermione. They were always a trio, a group of three up against the whole stinking world. It had been like that from the beginning, when they'd been young and naïve and stupid and only eleven years old, still untainted enough that they could still look at the world around them with rose-tinted glasses. The mountain troll had cemented their friendship, and now a possessed ugly locket seemed to have broken that cement.

The rose-tinted glasses had fallen apart after a while, over time becoming cracked, smudged, and, with the events of this night, finally broken entirely.

_I didn't mean to make her cry. I didn't mean to make him look so disappointed, so let down._

But he'd done it anyway.

He knew he couldn't come back, not yet anyway. He'd already caused enough of a rift between them, and he wasn't sure if he could mend it this time. The last time they'd been this divided, they'd been a couple of fourteen-year-old morons during the TriWizard Tournament, and he'd been a git, foolish enough to think that Harry, his best friend, his brother in all but blood, had been in it for the fame, for the fortune, for a sackful of Merlin-be-damned Galleons that weren't even worth the blood they'd been paid in.

Cedric's blood. Cedric, the first real casualty in this war. He'd been so young, not even out of Hogwarts yet. He'd been nice to Harry, polite to him even when his own fellow Hufflepuffs would probably have spit in Harry's face.

And he'd died, died in a cold, dank graveyard in Little Hanglington, hit by an _Advada Kedavra _that he'd never even seen coming.

"Kill the spare." It was amazing, he thought, how much three little words could make him suddenly feel like he was going to throw up.

The night was colder than before, owls hooting somewhere off in the distance. He could see his breath turn to white fog in the air, as if he was a dragon, breathing smoke.

Dragons...Charlie. Oh Merlin, his _family. _What would they say to him now, if they'd seen what he'd done?

He could practically hear the twins now, identical shouts of rage and mockery: "Idiot, what the ruddy hell were you thinking, leaving your best mates like that! They need you, and you go off because you think it's too damn _difficult_ for you? What's the matter, can't get out of Mum's apron strings yet?"

Bill and Charlie, giving him ugly looks of anger and disappointment, keeping their mouths tightly shut, as if it wasn't even worth the trouble of yelling at him.

Percy, with that damn smug look in his eyes, saying, "I _told _you not to hang around with him, that Harry's a rotten one, and you and Hermione are better off with someone _else _to be friends with, someone less..._mad_..."

He pictured Ginny, eyes narrowed with rage and red from crying, her wand out and pointed at him, ready to unleash a Bat-Bogey Hex the likes of which not even Malfoy had ever felt. "You stupid bloody _idiot_! You damn daft toad! What on earth made you walk out on Harry and Hermione? Are you crazy!?"

His parents faces swam before his vision. There would be no rage after a while, the anger would fizzle out like a wet Filbuster's Firework, leaving only disappointment and sadness behind, and then he'd feel awful, like he'd punched someone's little bratty kid or something.

Ron looked up at the sky, dark enough now that he could see the stars, if there would even be any out, and wondered how the others at Hogwarts were doing. He wondered how Luna was doing, if she'd still kept up her faith in the weird even as darkness swarmed the wizarding world like a plague of locusts.

He shuddered in the icy night air, wrapping his arms tighter around himself. He'd run off without even packing a bag to take with him, so all his sweaters were still back at the campsite. _Real **smart** move, idiot. What oh so clever ideas are you going to cook up this time, maybe lighting up your wand so that every Death Eater and Snatcher for ten miles can see you? At least then you can get your arse handed to you, like you deserve for being such an idiot._

He shoved the oppressive thoughts away. He'd survive, he had a feeling that he would. He just hoped that he'd be able to live with himself when he did.

There was a star up there, only one in the whole dark mesh of sky. Ron looked at it, focusing as hard as he could. He remembered this trick, his Mum had taught him it as a kid no taller than her knees. "Wish upon a star, and you'll get that wish to come true. But it only works if you really, honestly mean it."

What should he wish for? For Harry and Hermione to take him back, after he'd made a total arse of himself back there at camp, spouting crap like there was no tomorrow? Should he wish for his family to make it through this war in one piece, safe and whole, unlike so many others who'd already fallen? A wish, perhaps, for the students and decent staff of Hogwarts to make it through alright? A wish to fix the Ministry of Magic, so that it actually did what it was supposed to do, and actually _help _the public, instead of spouting lies like a broken fountain and slandering the names of others, people who actually _wanted_ to do what was good for their fellow witches and wizards and other wizarding world inhabitants, in order to make themselves look better?

Should he make a wish for Harry, perhaps? A wish that his friend would make it through this okay, and then be able to be actually happy, without the problems of the meddling wizarding press, or the stupid Prophecy? He'd already had enough to deal with when he'd lived with the Dursleys for most of his life, he didn't want him to have to deal with more crap after the war.

_No...that's not it. A wish like that isn't powerful enough. There'd always be something or someone in the way. There needs to be a better wish than that..._

He looked at that star, all bright and shining and beautiful, a single, unspoilt light gleaming, brave and defiant, amongst the blackened smudge of nighttime sky, and then he _knew _what he had to wish for. Not just what he should, but what he _had _to wish for, because in this case, it was one and the same.

_I hope this works._

He stared at the star, letting the light burn into his vision until all he could see was white, and whispered a few words.

There was a sudden sharp _crack_, and then Ronald Weasley was gone, with only his footprints on the frost-covered ground to tell that he'd even been there at all.

* * *

Luna Lovegood was happy.

No, she was not worried, nor was she pretending to be content, as she'd been doing for the past months. The Wrackspurts had been quite busy these last few weeks, flitting about the castle like little worker bees, chattering away madly. She was glad they were happy, they hadn't had much reason to be, given the events of Hogwarts this year.

The whole castle was taken under Death Eater control, and she had to say, she didn't like the new Defense against the Dark Arts classes, or as they were now known, the Dark Arts Classes. The teachers, the Carrow siblings, were awful, hitting students with spells left and right, commanding them to attack one another with banned spellwork and the Unforgivable Curses. Luna didn't like those curses, they made people very upset, especially Neville. Poor, dear Neville. He'd landed in the Hospital Wing this morning, defending a little First Year girl from getting hit with a "misguided" _Diffindo_ charm from a smirking Fifth Year Slytherin named Rufus Marben.

However, that didn't mean _all _the teachers were awful. The original teachers had tried to make life as bearable as possible for their students, keeping up with normal classes, giving words of advice and encouragement, and helping heal injured students after classes. Numerous times, she'd seen the Heads of the Houses confront the Carrows, exchanging both spellwork and insults in order to protest the mistreatment of their students.

Many students who'd protested these abuses of themselves, as well as of others, had been guinea pig "volunteers" for the Dark Arts classes. Madame Pomphrey had her hands quite full with that lot. The Hospital Wing was almost always full to bursting now, packed with students who'd been brave or stupid enough to defend themselves. Luna went down there each week, having volunteered to maintain the medical potions supply and keep the wounded company.

The Room of Requirement, she reflected, was a very useful room to have. The whole thing had enchanted itself to house the entirety of Dumbledore's Army, making hammocks and bunkbeds and steamer trunks and bookshelfs, and even a target practice range to keep their spellwork sharp. All of their things had moved there too, even hers, which made her quite pleasantly surprised. Her things didn't get trashed anymore, at least not by the students, but the Death Eaters had been known to rifle through "suspicious" students' belongings if it suited them, and if anyone protested...well, Luna didn't like to think about that.

But that ended today, at least for her. Luna knew that today would be her last day here. The war would be won, she knew that. Harry Potter would win it, and the world would rejoice, she knew that too. But she wouldn't be around to see it.

The Wrackspurts had told her to go up to the Astronomy Tower and wait for the only star in the sky, and look at it until all she could see was white. They'd said that she needed to go, that the war would be over soon, and the world would rebuild itself. She knew that they were right.

However, that didn't mean that she couldn't say good-bye first. She'd sent a note to her Daddy, telling him what happened, and that she hoped that she could write to him again soon, wherever she was going. Neville had been given a hug, and told not to worry about her, and she'd try to see if they could write letters to each other. Ginny had gotten the same treatment, although her hug was slightly shorter than Neville's hug had been.

Now it was night time, the light of the star radiant and sparkling like a freshly polished diamond in the inky sky. She smiled, holding her hand out, reaching up to the light. She stepped up onto the ledge, wanting to catch the light and hold it in her hands, hold it up to her heart and see the shining aura fill her entire being with warmth.

She took a step too far, and dropped, falling like a marionette with the strings cut. She wasn't afraid.

A _crack_ resounded, breaking the crisp, icy silence of the night, and Luna Lovegood vanished in midair, only halfway down the Astronomy Tower, a few Wrackspurts flitting about the ledge the only sign she'd even been there at all.


	2. Chapter 2: Reboot, Reunion, and Comfort

When he came back to some semblance of consciousness, the first that registered was, oddly enough, the feeling of his old, violently orange Chudley Cannons blanket, bunched up over his body in a fabric cocoon.

But that blanket, along with everything else, had gone up in smoke, along with the rest of his old life after he joined the Horcrux hunt. So why was he feeling as if it was covering him, as if this was just another childhood morning at the Burrow?

Death Eaters were able to manipulate their environment, Dark Magic being at their disposal to make cruelly realistic illusions of past treasures in order to better torment their victims. Snatchers were dangerous too, prone to attacking, capturing, and "confiscating" the possessions of people who were being hunted down for registration by the Ministry due to being muggleborns. Perhaps he'd been ambushed by a group of either side, and been cursed so many times that he was hallucinating?

Well, hallucination or not, it was painfully convincing. Opening his eyes, the redhead peered out from his mound of blankets to see his old bedroom, still that violent shade of orange, with that stack of comics in the corner, and the frogspawn in a tank. Ron could see several dirty shirts scattered about the floor, and his Chudley Cannon posters were still up. There was a stick of Droobles Best Chewing Gum poking out from underneath his pillow, and the floor had several wrappers from the packaging as well, stuffed under his bed, as if to hide them from his Mum's hawk-like eyes.

When he found whoever the hell had done this, he wasn't going to hold back from beating them into dirt. But he'd need his wand for that; he was next to defenseless without it, as much as he hated to admit it. Mad-Eye Moody had been right in the idea of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" being so important; their generation had been literally an all or nothing group, with witches and wizards either being able to perform the magic needed to defend themselves, or being so inept or arrogant in their spellcasting that they wouldn't be able to transfigure so much a teabag, much less conjure a proper Shield Charm or decent offensive hex. No wonder so many in the wizarding world were willing to swallow the lies of _Daily Prophet; _it was so much easier to just pretend that nothing was really going in, because if the trouble was real, they'd eventually have to go to the trouble of actually trying to put up a fight.

He had to admit, the fact that so many in the wizarding world were willing to go along with such a charade spoke volumes about how ridiculously unbalanced their society was. He could just hear Hermione's voice now, muttering about how in the muggle world, the government was better managed, and the newspapers run more fairly, and the public more inclined to look to the whole picture. She'd explained the muggle world judicial and political systems to him a few times, when she'd corrected the inaccurate facts given by their Muggle Studies professor. It had been quite funny, to be honest, to see the look on their professor's face when Hermione had politely raised her hand and told her, in the sort of kind but authorative manner that an adult would use to explain something to a child, that _no_, muggles did not live more primitive lives without magic, and that it was pronounced "telephone", _not _"fellytone." The bit of pride he'd felt welling up inside him when he recalled that _he _knew how to pronounce "telephone", when the professor hadn't, was a welcome bonus to that lesson.

But he could reminisce later. Until then, he needed to get his wand, and figure out how the hell to get out of this damn hallucination. Merlin help him if he ran across any of his family, his senses were running off a hair-trigger. He'd be lucky if he didn't just have some sort of breakdown or something, or just start firing hexes left and right.

He pulled himself out of bed and began looking for his wand. Unfortunately, there was no hint of it that he could find in the room. Sheets and the orange blanket were pulled off the bed, his shirts on the floor were turned over, the underside of his bed was searched as well, but there was nothing. It was if he didn't even _have _his wand.

Ron could just _feel _the panic settling in his bones at this, paranoia rising to a painful degree as he realized his lack of defense. His wand was his only real defense against Death Eaters, or anyone else on You-Know-Who's side, and he couldn't find it.

_I've got half a mind to hit whoever did this with a good Blasting Hex..._

Except that he didn't have his wand to cast the Blasting Hex with. Dammit, he wished his friends were here. Even if they were mad at him, they'd still help him. But they weren't, so for now, at least, he was on his own. Merlin, he could use some help here. How on earth did his Mum find the power to clean this pigsty of a room?

_Oh wait, she's had practice. _

Several minutes later, his search had yet to give any real results. Ron was about ready to tear his hair out in frustration. He needed his wand, he _needed_ it. But it just wasn't there.

What was he supposed to do now? As far as he knew, he couldn't go and get another, he wasn't even sure if this was a messed-up dream or not, and even if it wasn't, he doubted he would be allowed to go to Ollivander's to get a new wand. His family didn't have to funds for that, that was why he'd been using his brother's old wand until that one had been replaced after the unpleasant crash into the Whomping Willow.

_Am I even of age to get a wand? I haven't checked a mirror yet, so I don't even know how old I am here._

There was a dented, empty pop can underneath his bed. He could use that as a substitute mirror.

After digging under his bed for a moment, he managed to retrieve the can, and held it up the light, peering into the reflective surface. The image was warped and stretched due to the cheap, dented aluminum surface, but sure enough, he could see his reflection, and what he noticed about it caused his knees to buckle and give out, dropping him onto the floor with an unceremonious bang. The noise barely even registered; the shock was too great.

Tall, gangly, with a smattering of freckles across the nose, big hands and feet, and pasty skin. A thick, full head of bright red hair, ruffled from sleep, and a thin nose, frowning mouth, and wide, surprised-looking blue eyes. This was normal.

What was _not _normal was the age. When Ron had last been conscious, he remembered very well that he was a seventeen-year-old wizard, a young man who'd skipped out on his seventh year of schooling to go with his best friends on a mad hunt for magical items that may or may not determine the fate of the wizarding world. But that had been before this.

This...this was not him. At least, not as he knew that he should be. The reflection staring back at him was that of a young boy, probably around nine or ten years old, with hands and feet that he wouldn't grow into properly until he hit that growth spurt. His bangs flopped in front of his face, covering his eyes and tickling the bridge of his nose, and Ron realized, with a sort of vague, detached amusement, that his Mum hadn't cut his bangs yet.

He looked down and winced slightly upon realizing that he was still wearing those pajamas in that eye-searing shade of Chudley Cannons orange. How his Mum had ever agreed to let him get those, he would never know.

_No wonder I couldn't find my wand. I didn't even get it from Mum and Dad yet. _

So, he had a rough timeframe of "when" he was at. But something was wrong, a vague, unsettling, niggling feeling itching at the back of his mind. Just _what _was he forgetting? Was there something in this time that was really important?

Ron sat down on his bed and thought for a moment, going over the things that he could remember from being nine or ten. _Let's see, I don't meet Hermione or Harry until I board the Hogwarts Express when I'm eleven, so it's not that. Fred and George start making prototypes for their joke shop around this time, so that's what all the bangs were from their room. Bill and Charlie are out of school now, Bill's with the goblins, and Charlie's with dragons, and I had Luna over for a sleepover last week..._

The last thought slipped in, as if as an afterthought, but the person associated with that thought hit Ron as hard as if he'd been punched in the face.

Luna. Oh Merlin, _Luna. _

How old was she when her mother died? Nine. Only nine years old. Just old enough to have enough memories of her to remember her love, but young enough to have been left with a hole in her heart that she couldn't quite fill up again.

He knew that the emptiness wasn't from lack of trying; Luna had always loved the bizarre magical creatures that she and her parents saw, but after Mrs. Lovegood died, he knew that Luna and her father had taken to their eccentric animals with a fervor so strong that it was almost unhealthy. He remembered how the other children in town would tease her for seeing things that "weren't there", how the boys would say she had cooties, and the girls would call her "weird", or say she was a "freak".

Freak. _Freak. _How he _hated _that word.

Harry had been called a freak. He never had said so, but Ron knew. He could see it in the way that the Dursleys addressed him, as if he was subhuman. He'd seen it in the way that Harry would tense up, ever so slightly, in the first few seconds when his Mum would hug him tightly and claim that he needed to eat more food. The way that he'd noticed, out of the corner of his eye, how Harry had reacted for the first time to all the homecooked food on the table when he had breakfast after being "liberated" from the Dursleys during second year. He'd looked at the meal before him as if it couldn't even be real, it was too good to be true. When he'd gone to bed that first night, with Harry sleeping on a makeshift cot beside him in his room, he'd noticed that Harry's fingers and wrists were just a little bit too small to fit his Weasley-supplied pajamas properly, his wrists thinner, he'd thought, since he'd seen Harry leaving with the Dursleys after getting off the Hogwarts Express after first year. The shock of jet-black hair had been a startling contrast to the pale skin, that infamous lightning scar covered well with Harry's choppy, uneven bangs.

Looking back on that night, Ron knew he hadn't been sharing a room with the Boy-Who-Lived. He'd been sharing a room with a reedy, pale, knobbly-kneed, already- too-old preteen boy in need of a good haircut, a good home and family, and a hug.

Ron may have been only twelve when he had helped Fred and George break Harry out of the Dursely's painfully immaculate home, but he had been smart enough to understand that something hadn't been quite right. He'd wondered why Harry had needed bars on his bedroom window, a bedroom that he'd seen looked more like a prison cell than a boy's room. He'd wondered why there was a catflap put into the bedroom door, because he didn't think that the Dursley family was really the type to own any cats.

He'd wondered.

He'd wondered, and watched, and waited until they'd gotten back to the Burrow. He'd wanted to ask Harry about the things that were so strange about his room, but he'd been struck by the sight of Harry's shocked expression when they'd come to get him, that expression that had been mingled with disbelief, and a tiny, tiny bit of hope.

_Hope for what__?_, he'd questioned inwardly. He'd barely even managed that thought, because he'd known, even then, that what he'd seen wasn't normal, not one bit.

He'd held his tongue about it when he'd talked to Harry, he knew, from the time he'd spent with his friend so far, that he was a rather private person, despite the problems with the press, and trying to get him to open up about something like this would be like trying to get Fred and George to stop pranking people. So instead he'd settled for making a mental note to try to get him to come to the Burrow more often after this. He knew that his family would see to it that Harry got a decent time of things, even if only for a while. "Only for a while" was still better than nothing at all.

But when he'd told his Mum about the awful conditions, she hadn't believed him. Ron knew it was because she was the sort of person who wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt, to see the best in others. He hadn't mentioned it again, afraid that it might upset her, because it certainly had the first time. Ron didn't want to make his Mum cry.

But still, he'd wondered. Wondered why others didn't say anything about it, even when it clearly wasn't the best choice. A boy shouldn't have to be treated like a criminal, locked up in a room little better than a cage. A boy shouldn't have to fight the battles of a world too damn cowardly to save its own hide, even when the odds were stacked against him, and too many secrets kept "for the greater good". The jealousy he'd felt during fourth year shamed him now, an ugly emotion that he knew was no good for him. Harry wasn't the type to go for fame, he never was. How he could have been jealous of someone who'd lived with practically next to nothing for the vast majority of his life, Ron _really _didn't want to think about.

But the wizarding world thrust that fame, in all its disgustingly two-faced "glory", on his thin shoulders anyway. Ron knew he'd never have been able to bear such a horrific weight, yet Harry, he'd seen, had been able to carry it, despite the pain it obviously caused him. Ron had seen the foul headlines from _The Daily Prophet _during fifth year, in that awful Grimmwauld place, and had wished to Merlin that he could come of age sooner, the urge to hex every goddamn idiot who wrote the slandering newspaper burning like a bonfire. Sirius had suggested mailing poisoned "fan letters"; Ron had barely managed not to agree, for fear of his Mum overhearing. When Harry had finally shown up at Headquarters and exploded at them in a fury about being intentionally kept out of the loop of current events, Ron could only endure the angry shouting and silently agree with his friend's rage, knowing that he and Hermione had been right about it being a bad idea to keep Harry ignorant on purpose.

Harry, he knew, was in need of a better life. And Merlin help him, if this crazy hallucination turned out to be real, he'd do it. He'd get him out of that awful house, somehow, he didn't know just how yet, but he would. Hopefully, he'd be able to convince his parents to let Harry stay with them, and if anyone protested, they'd have a very angry Ronald Weasley to deal with.

Hermione, he knew, wouldn't really be accessable to him until first year, seeing as she was a muggleborn, but he knew that it would probably be better to be nicer to her. He'd already made her cry when he left camp, he didn't want to do that again.

He may not be able to apologize to Harry and Hermione ever again for leaving them so horribly, but if this was real, hopefully he could make a decent enough change to start to make up for it.

But for now though, he needed to find Luna. Right now, she was the one he could actually reach. He could worry about his wand later, if this really was his nine or ten year old self's time.

Running out of his bedroom, he hurtled himself through the slid down the banister, bolting out the door within an instant. At the moment, he didn't really care if he encountered any of his family, he had something important to do. And if he was right...

_Oh Merlin, please don't let me be right._

The feeling of unease crept up his spine, gripping his bones with icy fingers. He prayed profusely that he was wrong. _Please, please, let me be wrong about this. _

The green, grassy fields became blurred from the speed of his running. He knew how to find the Lovegood place, it was the only house he knew of that was shaped like a giant rook. _Good thing I like chess so much, or else I'd probably not have remembered what her house looks like._

There were no birds singing, the creek nearby was oddly muted, as if he was hearing things while underwater. The door to the house was open, but inside it was silent.

There was no sign of Luna. Ron fought down the worry rising up inside him, and tore off towards the creek. Luna, he remembered Mr. Lovegood saying, liked to fish for Gulping Plimpies down there to add to soup. She might be down there.

_She has to be down there. There's nowhere else for her to go, unless it's into the woods._

Ron and Luna had both been in those woods before, but that thought, given what day it was, didn't give much comfort.

She was by the creek bank, her feet bare, dabbling her toes in the water. Her hair was still long, and there was a daisy, freshly plucked and splattered in dirt, clutched in her hands, thin, pale fingers nimbly plucking off the petals one by one. He could hear her voice, little more than a whisper, singing some sort of ditty that Ron could vaguely recognize by the tune he'd heard Luna hum when they were little.

_Bowtruckles, funny little twiggy creatures,_

_Houses in trees and bugs as dinner,_

_Give them daisies and tops of acorns brown,_

_And they will give you a pretty fairy crown._...

Ron walked up to her, silent. Luna didn't look at him, merely continuing to pluck off the petals from her daisy until there was nothing left, before the flower was dropped into the creek, carried away slowly by the sluggish water. When it was finally out of sight, she turned around and looked at him, her large, silvery-grey eyes red-rimmed, a watery smile on her face as she took in his appearance.

He took in her unusually haggard appearance, looked at the specks of black dirt pockmarking her hands from where she'd held the daisy, the way her eyes wavered and shimmered like the reflection of the full moon over the open ocean. He looked at her bare feet, the toes wrinkled and tinged with blue from being in the cold river water for so long. He knew she didn't care about that, she couldn't feel the cold, not anymore.

After a moment, he spoke, the words choked up. It was if there was a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball. "Hello, Princess Luna."

She stared for a moment, a flurry of emotions dancing across her face, as she whispered back, "Hello, Sir Ronald."

Ron held out his arms, and Luna rushed forwards, like she'd done on that night in the forest when they were little. Like before, he wrapped his arms securely around her, holding her steady.

Unlike before, Luna trembled, ever so slightly, and he could smell potions ingrediants in her hair, ingrediants from her mother's lab. Her hands clutched at the hem of his pajama shirt like a lifeline. Her eyes were strange, a fragile, trembling spark of something in them that he wasn't willing to speak of. It would do him no good to speak of it. It was a part of her, but he was here with her, so maybe it was a part of him now too.

He sat down on the ground, cross-legged, pulled her into his lap, and rocked back and forth, like he'd seen his Mum do with Ginny when she skinned her knees as a toddler, repeating, "Just let it out, just let it out..." over and over again. He knew it would do no good to tell her it would be okay, no one ever believed that after something like this.

He was still holding her when it was dark out, and Mr. Lovegood came down to the creek, to find his daughter's best friend holding her tight, the dirt from her hands staining his orange shirt with flecks of black.


	3. Chapter 3: Trying To Adjust

Luna was still quiet as she finally stopped shaking, that strange spark slowly fading into the back of her omniscient gaze, smoking faintly like a dying ember. It was still there, but it was quiet now, hidden. She could control it, keep it down, Ron was sure of it.

Without saying anything, he gently pushed her off his lap, getting up off the ground and pulling her to her feet. He took hold of her hand, marveling inwardly at the fragile, snow-pale fingers, and then walked back to the Lovegood house, Luna in tow, looking more lost and vulnerable than he'd ever seen her. He strengthened his grip, squeezing her fingers once, though whether it was to reassure her or himself of their reality wasn't quite clear. After a moment, to his relief, he felt an ever so slight squeeze back.

The kitchen was lit, the lights apparently left on by Mr. Lovegood, who entered the house after them, closing the door with an echoing _click. _The clock nearby made soft ticking noises, but there was nothing else, save for their breathing and the kitchen light being on, to tell that there was anyone home. Ron shuddered inwardly at the silence, it felt unnerving.

Desperate to busy himself with something to do, he headed over the cupboards and took out several mugs to make hot chocolate with. Professor Lupin, he remembered, always had a love of chocolate, and for good reason: it warmed up the body, gave a person something to savor and enjoy, something to focus on instead of the bad things. The Dementors' horrid effects on people was often combated with chocolate, since it produced a warm, comforting feeling. Ron knew that the chocolate, at least in this situation, may do some good.

Making the drink was difficult, due to Luna holding onto his hand like a drowning sailor clinging to a beam, but he didn't have the heart to make her let go. Instead, he'd squeeze her fingers every so often, rubbing the palm of her hand with the tips of his fingers to restore circulation to the tightly coiled, cold grip.

Mr. Lovegood, silent at the table, looked as badly off as his daughter, if not worse: his eyes, sad and pained, were the worst part. Ron remembered those eyes during his childhood looking bright, friendly, cheerful, and every bit as full of mad enthusiasm as the sun colored robes he'd worn during Bill and Fleur's wedding in the world Ron had left behind. They weren't cheerful now, though. They were melancholy, bereft of their usual cheer, as if a storm cloud had taken up residence behind his eyes, and pouring down buckets of slate-colored, stinging water.

Ron took the drinks to the table one at a time, so as not to spill. Mr. Lovegood didn't even look up, instead seeming to be mesmerized by a knot of wood set into the table. The hot chocolate, wafting the warm scent of cocoa and cinnamon, went untouched. Ron decided to ignore it for the moment, and guided Luna into a chair next to him, gently pushing a cup of hot chocolate into her free hand. She stared at the full cup as if looking right through it. Her fingers, ice-white against the cobalt blue of the ceramic cup, looked achingly frail.

Ron felt sick, worried, confused, a thousand jumbled thoughts swarming around in his emotionally-exhausted mind. _What do I do? _

But what_ could_ he do? He wasn't a hero, he couldn't save the day. There was no Time-Turner for him to use, no wand to cast the _Protego _to shield the Lovegoods during that tragic experiment. He hadn't been able to come back far enough to prevent _this. _

Hermione, that night when he'd woken up in the Hospital Wing during their third year to find that Sirius had escaped on Buckbeak, had explained to him that time could be rewritten. She and Harry had gone back in order to break Sirius out and help him evade the Demetor's Kiss. Time wasn't exactly fluid, she'd said, but a huge, constantly moving piece, that could be punctured and reshaped and redone, at least for the most part. There'd be parts that were too small, too miniscule in time to change, the "fixed points" that were untouchable.

Ron looked at the broken family in front of him, unable to even look at each other, and wondered why life was cruel to the nicest of folks.

Harry had lost his parents when he was only a year old, because of the pathetic delusions of grandeur harbored in the twisted mind of a madman who wanted to live forever. He'd had his house ruined, his parents both gone, and then he was dumped on the doorstep of his unloving, unkind, magic-hating muggle relatives on a cold, windy October night as if he was about as valuable as a bottle of milk. The only thing he'd had to identify him had been a note, and a blanket too thin for such weather, and a cursed scar that would cause him no end of pain or trouble. He'd been treated like a house-elf, Ron remembered, that cupboard under the stairs in that sickeningly pristine house was his only remembered "home" until the damn fools let him live in their spoiled kid's second bedroom. Ron had seen how Harry could cook, how he could clean, how he'd kept Ron company while they de-gnomed the garden, how he was always so polite, so quiet, that Mrs. Weasley was constantly enthralled by his good-natured attitude. No boy his age that he knew of, other than Harry, had been willing to do so much work without complaining. _If only she'd stopped to wonder why he even knew how to do such things so well in the first place. If only any of us had noticed, and then stood up to actually say something. _

Neville had lost his parents to insanity after repeated torture under the Cruciatus curse from Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange. He remembered that Christmas at St. Mungo's closed Ward, where he'd seen those famous Aurors, the Longbottom couple. The way he'd heard people talk so fondly of them, he'd pictured them to be intelligent, strapping people, strong and good-looking, and that they'd greet anyone they met with good cheer. He'd never expected to find them in that cold, painfully quiet ward, Alice little more than a pale, thin shadow of her former self, Frank not even getting out of bed. Ron remembered how she'd given Neville that Droobles wrapper, and how his Gran had told him to throw it away; he'd seen the look of sadness, of resignation in his eyes, as he was belittled by his Gran, scolded for being "ashamed" of his spell-damaged parents. The wrapper, he'd noticed, had been slipped carefully into Neville's pocket as he'd left. He was certain that it wasn't the first he'd kept, either. No, Neville, who'd been compared to his perfect parents his entire life, who'd been bullied at school for being "useless" at spellcasting and being so inept that Malfoy said he was no better than a Squib, who couldn't even get his own wand that would fit him properly because his Gran wanted him to use his Dad's old wand...no, Neville wouldn't have thrown that wrapper away. It was probably the only thing he was given that he really liked. Even the Remembrall had been given to him so that he'd "stop forgetting everything". _If only his folks could see how much improvement he'd made in those DA classes. No one but Hermione could beat him at learning everything so fast._

Hermione, the smartest girl he'd ever known, hadn't had any decent friends before she'd gone to Hogwarts, teased relentlessly for being so intelligent, and being unable to express that knowledge in any way that didn't label her as "stuck up". He was ashamed to recall he'd been one of those people who'd mean to her. Even at Hogwarts, she hadn't been treated equally by other students, because she smarter than them, or deemed inferior as a "Mudblood". He remembered how he and Harry had found her in the bathroom that day in first year, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, a look of incredulity in her gaze that they'd even come to talk to her, much less to apologize and help get her out of danger. _She was always so lonely in first year before us_, he recalled, _as if she wasn't even sure how to make friends. Maybe that was why she always spouted facts like she'd swallowed the bloody dictionary, it was a way of getting people to notice her._

Professor Remus J. Lupin, the only competent Defense Professor they'd ever had, and he'd been sacked, just for being a werewolf. It didn't matter to the School Board about the fact that he'd actually been able to teach something useful, and valuable, to the students. They'd thrown him out anyway, for something he couldn't even fully get rid of. It wasn't as if he'd asked to be bitten, Ron had been told that he'd only been a little boy when he'd gotten the bite, but did those bastards care? No, they didn't care, because no self-respecting pureblood would ask to mingle with "inferior beings". _And yet those "inferior beings" have so much strength, just to keep surviving another day listening to the tripe the Ministry and its idiots says about them._

Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, an escapee from the wizarding equivalent of hell on Earth: Azkaban. Hermione had once told him the muggles had something like it, some place called Alcatraz. Sirius, he remembered, hadn't made the best impression on him when they'd first met, considering that Sirius had been in his dog animagius form and had bitten him, dragging him around like a rag doll by his broken leg. He hadn't looked well then, either, more like a gaunt, underfed, pale vampire than a real person. But he'd offered to take Harry in, he'd been desperate to mend the bond he'd once had with his only godson. Ron remembered the rage, the fierceness in his tone as he'd cursed Mudungus Fletcher to hell and back when he'd found out that the damn smarmy fool had left Harry alone at Privet Drive to go look at a "business proposition" on stolen cauldrons. He and Harry had finally had the beginnings of a family again, the way they'd acted towards each other. Grimmuald Place may have been a terrible place to live, but with each other, Ron had thought they just might find it bearable.

And then Sirius had died, not even as a free man, when he'd fallen through the Veil at the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries after being hit in the chest with a Stunning spell by his own cousin. He hadn't even look scared, only rather surprised, as if wondering what was happening. And then he was gone, gone to a place where he couldn't be called back, even though Harry had screamed himself hoarse, begging him to come back, just barely restrained by an anguished Professor Lupin. _He wasn't even free when he died. He'd been living at Grimmuald Place, locked up there for weeks on end, couldn't even get out for so much as a minute or more because the bloody Ministry wanted to hunt him down. If anything, they should've been hunting that mangy rat down, damn you Pettigrew. Filthy little coward begged for his life, but he sold out Harry's Mum and Dad as if they meant less to him than a pair of holey socks. I wish I'd let Crookshanks eat him._

His own family, despite the warmth, the strength, and the love they found in each other, was still considered to be in poverty by others, and "blood traitors" by the pureblood bigots who thumbed their noses at anything that they found lacking. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't gotten something as a second-rate hand-me-down, or an old, worn copy.

_It doesn't make any sense. We put so much work into doing the right thing, we try and do good to show that there still **is **good left in the world. But we get the bad end of things anyway. And then people like Malfoy, like Nott and Parkinson and all those other stuck up snobbish posh brats, they get to the elites because they'd been born with a damn silver spoon in their mouthes, so much money to be had that they blow it all on useless things to up their status and to say to the poorer folks "See, I can afford this, and you can't. I'm better than you." They curse everything they think is beneath them, but they're useless in reality. The Ministry's no better for the most part. What about all those damn Educational Decrees that banned all the fun things in Hogwarts? What about all the stupid anti-"halfbreed" legislation keeping the werewolves and the house-elves and the merfolk and all those others from getting their lot, huh? What's fair in that, I ask you? _

Ron looked at Luna, at Mr. Lovegood, at the untouched, slowly cooling hot chocolate before them, on the table that seemed painfully empty now.

He remembered bits and pieces of his childhood in this timeline, and the other timeline, memory fragments of sleepovers and afternoon teas and lunchtimes spent at the Lovegood house. He remembered a woman who looked very much like Luna, only older, and rather faery-like, wearing faded, paint-stained overalls with her wand sticking out of the side pocket. She'd worn radish earrings too, he recalled, and had the nicest, warmest smile he'd ever seen on anyone, except maybe his own Mum. Mrs. Lovegood had liked to bake cookies with butterscotch chips in them, drizzled in blue-dyed caramel sauce, and she'd always let him and Luna be taste-testers, and laughed when they burned their tongues on the hot cookies every time. She'd give him armfuls of Gurdyroots to take home and plant in the Weasley garden, and though his Mum hadn't liked the taste of homegrown Gurdyroots very much, he'd been able to give them to their garden gnomes as extra food in winter, and they'd liked them very much. There were days when he'd come over and she'd let him and Luna paint things on the walls, as well as paint each other when paint wars broke out. He remembered bits of the summer before this one, when he and Luna had gotten their families to do a huge family picnic together. Mrs. Lovegood had made sparkly pink lemonade, and Mrs. Weasley had made a variety of tasty sandwiches. Ron remembered how he and his siblings had played tag in the meadow, how Luna had braided a daisy chain into Ginny's hair, how Fred and George had somehow managed to stick a lit firecracker into the cherry pie and how it had exploded, all over Mr. Lovegood, and how he'd taken a taste and shouted "THIS IS DELICIOUS!" and then started a food fight by offering to "share some" with Fred by dumping a handful over his head.

Mrs. Lovegood had been a good person. He just wished that he had gotten a chance to make sure she'd lived longer.

He looked at them for a long time, watching the expressions of the two Lovegoods before him, one sad and pained, the other empty and silent, as if the light behind them had gone out.

A memory from that night in the Shrieking Shack in the other lifetime drifted out of the recesses of his mind, hovering before him like a misty figure speaking from another realm. Professor Lupin had said that Sirius had been so emotionally distraught at Lily and James's death that his first instinct had been to lash out and kill whoever had been responsible. He'd gone off, alone and upset, and had ended up confronting Peter Pettigrew, framed for the death of over a dozen innocent muggles, and sent to Azkaban for a horrific stay of twelve years in hell on earth.

He looked at Mr. Lovegood, at the upset expression twisting his usually kind, gentle face. He looked at the hands clutching at the table in a death grip, the wood creaking. He looked at Luna, whose empty expression, so different from the dotty, vacant kindness he was so used to, as if the girl had been Kissed by a Dementor and left only the empty shell of her body behind.

_That's it, I'm staying here tonight. They need company. _

Ron cleared the table, taking the hot chocolate and watching sadly as the untouched drink poured down the drain. He took a bit of parchment on the counter, scribbled down a quick note to his parents about the situation, and put it out on the windowsill, along with a bowl of fresh cream. He knew that although the Lovegoods kept no birds, the faeries that lived in their vegetable garden out back were willing to take messages back and forth if you paid them well.

Sure enough, when he poked his head out of the window to check, the note was gone. Ron sighed quietly, before closing the window and shutting the curtains. He took Luna by the hand and led her up to the bathroom, with an order to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. Luna obeyed silently, seeming to be on autopilot. Heading back to the kitchen, he shut any open drawers, before turning to Mr. Lovegood and saying quietly, "Luna's off to bed. No offense, but you need sleep too, sir."

After a few moments of staring blankly at him, Mr. Lovegood seemed to remember himself, and nodded silently, getting up from the chair and heading out of the kitchen and upstairs. He looked older than Ron had ever seen him, and he walked as if he wasn't quite sure where to put his feet. Ron stared after him as he disappeared up the stairs and down the hall to his room, hoping inwardly that nothing would happen. Luna had already lost one parent today, Merlin knows she didn't need to lose both of them.

After a moment of terrible quiet, he heard the slam of Mr. Lovegood's bedroom door echo down the hall, and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

He darted back up the stairs, to find Luna had put her toothbrush away, the toothpaste capped neatly on the sink. She was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, dressed in an old floral nightgown, her dolly from when she was seven clutched in her hands, turned over and over. Ron swallowed thickly, not sure what to think, before he headed to the bathroom to rinse the dirt from Luna's fingers off of his clothes.

_Good thing I'm already in my pajamas. I don't want to leave here to get something, only to come back and find something even more awful happened._

He looked at her, silent, before quietly making up Luna's bed, folding the covers back and fluffing up the pillows. "Luna, c'mon, you need sleep."

Luna looked up, silent, and for a terrible second, Ron had a feeling that she was looking right through him. But after a moment, her eyes cleared, and she nodded, climbing into the bed without a word. He tucked the covers around her, the way his Mum would do for him when he was little. Luna merely stared at him, her eyes still painfully blank.

Ron felt the edges of his vision become blurry, stinging slightly, and knew he had to pull himself together, or he'd break down and cry. Luna wasn't talking, or even really looking at him. Mr. Lovegood was little better off, it even that.

He curled up on top of the covers on Luna's bed, holding her hand on top of the blankets, and wished that tomorrow would be better.


	4. AUTHOR'S NOTE! PLEASE READ!

**IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!**

**To all you readers and followers of my stories, please note that there will be NO updates or uploads of ANY stories of mine from June 6, 2013-June 26, 2013 (unless I am very lucky and can beg a relative to let me use their computer to type).**

**The reason for this is quite simple: I'M GOING TO EUROPE THIS SUMMER!**

**Yes, that's right, I'm going off to that madcap continent of gorgeous European history, equally gorgeous people, and general tourist-attracting awesomeness. My family and I are heading to Western Europe for about three weeks or so, give or take a few days, and as this is the first time that I've gone to Europe since I was about five or so years old, I'm quite excited. The only memory I've got from then is when my Grandma took me to feed the goats.**

**I can't wait to go, we're spending time in England, Wales, France, Spain, and Germany, and possibly Switzerland and Italy! **

**The fact that I'm an avid Hetalia fan, proud Doctor Who nut, lifelong Harry Potter fanatic, _and_ a longtime history lover is also quite influential on this, since the entire time I'm over there, I'm probably going to be preoccupied with thinking about "Where _am_ I on this nation's body?" or "Wait, is that a TARDIS!? No wait, it's just an ordinary 1960s police box, never mind, false alarm! Although my Tardis key won't work on it, then..." or "Oh Merlin, that's that studio movie set for Hogwarts! I want to see inside, let me in, let me in! I've got a wand!" XD**

**The fact that I get to go to England first (and last, we're leaving through Heathrow) is also a major plus, as my family is convinced (and quite rightly so) that I seem to have an obsession with the United Kingdom's popular culture and history, which is probably due in part because I was raised on a literary diet of Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Peter Pan, and have a lifelong love of tea, scones, and fish n' chips. My liking of Eddie Izzard humor also plays a massive part in it, since now I can't even look at the European Union without thinking of the European Dream of "Hilda! Hilda! Wake up Hilda! I dreamt that every single country in Europe spoke a different language and they hated each other. Oh wait, that's true isn't it?"**

**My family each gets to choose a part of Europe that they want to visit, so this is a basic list of where in the massive European World Meeting chaos we'll be in for most of June:**

**1) ME: I chose the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, so I get to go to London (though thankfully my folks remember which side of the road to drive on), Stonehenge ("Helllllllllllllooooooooooooo, Stonehenge! Whoever takes the Pandorica, takes the universe!" XD), Torchwood (though the lack of Captain Jack Harkness will be a bit off-putting for my inner fangirl), the RAF Museum (I'm going to be looking at all the uniforms for ages and ages), Churchill's bunker (Which, thanks to that "Skyfall" movie last year, I will forever associate with a secretly relocated base of operations for the M16), plus that nice town in Wales that is dedicated completely to Doctor Who (which means my family will probably have to drag me away kicking and screaming "NO! I don't want to leaaaaaavvvvvvveeeeeeee!")! I even get to bring along my friend Ellie's special "Weeping Angel" edition hand painted converse, so I can RUN LIKE THE 10TH DOCTOR (Although it will be a bit harder to take off my shoes if I have to look without blinking)! And I get to drink all the tea that I want, which is great since I consume over a pint every day over here alone, over there I can go wild and no one will stare at me like I'm nuts! **

**2) MY SISTER: She chose France (for me, it's the land of the fashionably-dressed and the home of great cheese), so we're going to fly over there from England into Paris (I kind of wanted to take the Tube, since it reached the big 150-anniversary this year and if I could I would stay in England longer, but my folks said no, it's too crowded). We'll be sightseeing tourists in silly clothes, lugging backpacks and trying to drink the Starbucks that have sadly invaded such a lovely country. The Louvre, the Tour Eiffel, and several old castles are on the list of stuff to see, although my sister and I are going to be tour guides for this particular country (I took 4 years of French, my sister took 2 so far), so hopefully we won't get lost! I'm going to feel kind of strange over there, since I'm going to be able to eat all the bread and cheese I want (two things my mother has claimed for a long as I can remember that I could literally live off of if I wanted to), but I'm the only one in our family that drinks tea on a constant basis (everyone else drinks coffee, which I don't like whatsoever, since it's too off-tasting for me)...**

**3) MY MOM: Spain is her choice. She really wants to go somewhere nice and sunny and friendly, and Spain is a good place for that sort of thing. I just wish that I could stop thinking of Hetalia's Spain though, since I'll be over there and all I'll be able to think of is "Hmm, how close am I to Spain's butt?" (if you're wondering about that, just remember that he has a great-looking backside XD). And since we're going in June instead of August or September, unfortunately, we can't take part in the tomato-throwing festival, which looks ridiculously fun and amazing to do (Seriously, it's a day where you're literally all but _required_ to throw tomatoes at each other like a crazy paint war, that's awesome!).**

**4) MY DAD: He wants to go to Italy. In which case, we're going to be facing wild, possibly dangerous drivers (where my Dad will fit right in, since he drives really fast and is kind of reckless at times), loads of great food (I'm probably going to inwardly yell "PASTAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" every time I eat something), incredible artwork (I'm using some of my allowance to buy some pencils and a sketchpad for this country), and visiting Rome (in this case, all I'll be able to think about the whole time is Grandpa Rome on the gondola back in WW2 singing "In Hell, all the cooks would be British, the police would all be German, and the engineering would fall to the French..." XD) and the Roman Coliseum.**

**5) SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY: I know that Germany is a definite place we're going to, since I have a ton of cousins and relatives over there (My paternal Grandmother lived on a little farm on Silesia with her family, a bunch of farm animals, and possibly the most dangerous children's swing set in all of Europe (it was literally a pair of ten feet tall wooden stakes (a bit like the logs they throw in the Highland Games), with a thick plank of wood suspended by two thick metal chains, and the swing seat was at least six feet off the ground. You had to stand on it to swing properly, and one time someone swung too far out and ended up flying off it and landing face first (unharmed but very stinky afterward) in the manure pile XD). I love German food, my Grandma literally raised me on that stuff, it's delicious (although now our sauerkraut jar at home is half-empty thanks to my efforts).**

**Switzerland, I'm not so sure if we're going to go visit. We have some relatives living there, but I don't know if our schedule will allow us to go for longer than a day or two at most, if even that. If we do go, I hope we can see the Cern Facility, it looks really, really cool. Although I'm probably going be feeling paranoid most of the time...**

**And as I'm of drinking age in Europe now, I CAN HAVE BEER (And wine, but that's beside the point)! Hopefully, no one in my family gets crazy with the alcohol, since over half my relatives in Europe are German, and their beer is supposed to be awesome. If I actually get drunk, hopefully I don't end up acting like Prussia, since I don't want to be arrested. Prison would be bad for me, I'd annoy everyone else in there by spouting facts about Wrackspurts and Nargles all day.**

**Well, I've got finals to do (my math teacher seems to be human incarnate of the sadistic pink bunny rabbit from that "When You're Evil" fanmade music video), stuff to pack into my backpack (just the essentials: duct tape, clothes, spare tea, etc.), and then it's off to the airport full of super-paranoid American security precautions (though you can't really blame them), and then praying to Jashin, Warg, Pein, L, Merlin, and every single deity from the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series that we don't end up with an exploded engine, or crash onto an island like on "Lost", or end up becoming trapped and super paranoid and threaten to throw each other off the plane like on that episode of "Doctor Who" entitled _Midnight. _**


	5. I'M BAAAAAAAACK!

**Hello, my beloved minions! I mean, readers, yes, that's it, readers, hehe...**

**I have returned from that lovely, madcap continent known as EUROPE! Almost three whole weeks of nothing but MADNESS! THE MADNESS!**

**Three weeks of sexy European accent overload, three weeks of tasty foreign food, three weeks of driving around in a crazy rental car with a GPS so horrible that, in honor of the author DragonQueenSori, who came up with such a hilarious thing in the forst place, I ended up dubbing the damn thing the infamous name "Hitler" (I'm not kidding, that thing was EVIL. It wouldn't take any address punched into it, it would send us all over the map with super complicated directions, then it told us to turn or stop where we shouldn't or couldn't, and it wouldn't take any GPS coordinates we put into it. All the while with that same monotonus voice that made me want to tear it out of the rental car and stab it with something. The GPS in France was, if possible, WORSE: this one had all the flaws of the first GPS, but it also wouldn't tell us where to turn until we were already doing the turning, and it's directions were even more horrible. We typed in the coordinates to get to the CERN Facility in Switzerland (we had enough time to go visit for a day if we got up early to get a head start on the driving), and it sent us to a campground...in the mountains...in the the middle of one of the barely-mapped areas...on a one-way only road. Mom and Dad got so angry that we couldn't find CERN that we almost didn't go because Dad refused to drive unless Mom would help him find the right directions. Dad and I named this GPS "H2" after he vetoed "Napoleon".). And then the French gave us the wrong rental car, we asked for a Mercedes and we got a rental car that had no English instruction manual, too many unexplained buttons, a stuck "child safety lock" on both sides of the back seat, and a very narrow front window...which got a crack across the windshield after getting hit by a rock in high-speed traffic while driving in Germany. **

**But the people we met across Europe were pretty cool, very helpful and polite to us. In England, I even met a nice Australian man and his lady friend who showed me where the nearest store with Jaffa Cakes was. Those things are AWESOME, I ended up splitting a three-pack with my sister by Buckingham Palace and then my Dad surprised me with a supersize pack the next day (which I ate within about 3 days with only a little help, I think I left the UK as a permanent Jaffa Cake junkie).****The people in Wales and France were pretty nice too (well, in France we did have a few problems when we ran into this very aggressive waiter in St. Tropeze who insisted that we order exactly as he wanted us to, or else we could leave. We ended up eating that night at the restaurant across the street, which had a very nice waitress who my sister and I translated for, since she didn't speak enough English to talk to my parents.). I just wish that the French in Paris would be a bit...more hygenic about their sidewalks and streets. Everywhere we went in Paris, the pets and birds left little disgusting "presents" everywhere that no one would clean, so we had to step around them all the time. The smoking, though, we could deal with alright, since most of Europe likes to smoke everywhere, even though it made it kind of hard to enjoy a meal at times when the guy behind or in front of you is surrounded by a cloud of smoke that gets blown your way by the wind all the time. The Doctor Who experience in Cardiff was awesome, Dad even got to try out a spare Dalek prop and freak out the other visitors with "Exterminate! Exterminate!" every few minutes, and I had a major fangirl moment upon getting to check out all the costume props (although the regeration of the 10th Doctor they had replaying in the background of the 2005 Tardis control room made me want to cry...). The Harry Potter Experience on the outskirts of London was also epic, they gave us a full tour and showed us all the major props and costumes and sets involved, and I got to have Butterbeer for the second time in my life! That stuff really _is _magic. Although the fact that they only sell it both there and in Florida made it kind of hard not to crack up laughing...Darn my Hetalia associations with international locations. St. Tropeze was a great little French town by the sea, nice people, good food (although everyone wanting to order the beef stew with gnocchi made it hard to decide on dinner), and there was even a nice little Italian gelato shop where the servers scoop out triple-scoop ice creams that they sculpt into the shape of blooming roses (and let me tell you, the "after-dinner" mint chip, chocolate mousse, and "Tiramisu" ice cream combination is pure _magic_.). **

**Getting to France from Wales was harder than we thought it would be: only a few minutes after boarding the flight to Paris, we were informed by the pilot that our flight would be delayed for an hour or so because the French airport we were supposed to land in had all its workers go on strike. It was quite awkward for me, I'd never experienced that before. Although it _was_ kind of funny to hear the pilot sigh and tell us over the intercom, "Attention all passengers, terribly sorry about the delay, but the French have gone on strike again. Would anyone like a complementary drink while we wait?" **

**Dear Merlin, between the British Museum and the Louvre, I think I could just live in museums forever and ever, there's just so much cool stuff to see! Dad and I both can stay at a museum for hours, it drives Mom nuts. Between those two places, I don't think that I'll ever need to see Egypt or Greece, there's so much stuff from both places, it's insane. Switzerland was cool, the CERN Facility was a total geekout-fest for me, since I like Physics, but the 55 MPH driving speed they had everywhere drove Dad nuts XD**

**I really liked it in Germany, the food was delicious, the architecture was gorgeous, and the people were nice. Since I have tons of relatives over there, we stayed with several cousins and their families. Their households remind me of Hobbit-holes: warm, cheerful, homey, with a bunch of stuff everywhere, and enough food and nice company for you to want to stay forever. Beer has officially become part of the things I miss about Europe, since I'm still too young to drink in the U.S. and I've become used to having it at mealtimes. I can just _see _a mental image of a tiny little Prussia chibi scowling because there will be no proper beer...**

**I'm seriously going to miss being able to eat the food in Europe, so fresh and not stuffed with preservatives and hormones. Even the little bakeries and meat shops they have are better than all the supermarkets back home, where you** **have to go to a pricey specialty shop to get anything even close to really good quality. **

**And as insane as it may sound to some, out of all the different kinds of food we had in Europe, I honestly miss England's food the most. Yorkshire Pudding, endless custard jugs, the bottles of ginger beer, the endless cups of tea (I kind of overindulged, since Mom wouldn't normally let me drink so much back home, but it _was_ England, so she let it slide), Jammy Dodgers, Jaffa Cakes, fish n' chips, meat pies, baked beans on toast for breakfast, and about a million other things that I tried that I miss. I even miss the black pudding, and my mother thought I was crazy for liking that. Well, at least if I study over there, I know that I won't starve. Mom and Dad were surprised at the food, they (well, unfortunately, my Mom did, my Dad can, and will, eat pretty much anything) thought the food would be bad, but it turns out that the food was great! Dad even joked that the "bad cooking" stereotype was a rumor created by jealous Parisians XD **

**The food aside, I'm going to miss the double-decker buses (seriously, sitting in the front row up on the top level is like the ultimate shotgun, you see everything), the lights all over the city, waking up to listen to the hustle and bustle of people outside...And the accents. I'm usually pretty good about not being a part of stereotyping, but accents in the UK are like a vocal version of high-quality chocolate to me, and I'm known in my family as a chocoholic. I am an accent fangirl, and I'm proud of it!**

**I'm also rather surprised to find so many Doctor Who references that seem to have popped up while I was in Europe. Aside from the Doctor Who Experience itself, in Germany we had three things happen on the same day: one of our older relatives had a statue in his garden that looks disturbingly like one of the "Saved" interfaces from the Doctor Who episode _Silence in the Library_, and on top of that, we took family pictures and Dad, the camera man, kept telling us "Stay out of the shadows!", and then when we were driving later on the rock hit our windshield and made a great big crack. Not to mention I kept finding Tardis blue stuff everywhere: blue buildings, blue jewelry, blue clothes, even a man in a Tardis blue full-body jumpsuit in England who passed us by when we visited a food festival. Weird, huh?**

**Unfortunately, we didn't get to go visit Spain, or either half of Italy. There wasn't enough time, since the schedule Mom planned for us didn't allow for it. Hopefully the next time I go to Europe, I'll be able to go see it. Although in France we had a ton of tourists from Italy and Spain on the beaches with us, so I still got a bit of a taste of both countries. **

**Anyway, thank you very much for being so patient with me these past few weeks away. I hadn't gotten the chance to get on the computer until recently, since my sister and I had no access to technology during the trip. However, we stayed the last few days of our trip with a wealthy realtive and his family (they own and operate a manufacturing and distribution business for high-quality organic wine), and they were nice enough to let me use their Ipad to type up this and the chapters I wrote in my notebook. I'll be uploading each chapter that I wrote while I was on vacation one at a time, so the updates will probably be between one to three times a week if possible, depending on the rest of my summer plans and homework. **


	6. Chapter 4: Nightmarish Reality

Sleep does not come easily sometimes. It can be blocked by ceaseless thoughts, hunger or thirst, worry, confusion, or even fear. Sometimes it is completely impossible to fall asleep, and you lay awake for hours, your eyes able to close, yet you can't find comfort in the arms of Morpheus.

For Ronald Weasley, sleep was not easy at all. He lay there, unmoving, on the bed which was both full and empty all at once. Luna was there with him, but she was so still, so silent, and so very small, the shadows blanketing her tiny form so much, that he might as well have been sleeping alone. He had to squint in the dark every so often, just to make sure that there was someone else there with him.

When he finally did manage to fall asleep, it was due to exhaustion overcoming the urge to remain awake. When his eyes closed, it felt like drowning: a dark, empty suffocation, stifling in its silence.

Nightmares and dreamscapes appeared as well, dark and terrible, a confusing jumble of images from somewhere and some time period that Ron couldn't place, couldn't quite understand. It was as if the dreams were water cupped in his hands, slipping through the cracks between his fingers and leaking away, to a place where he couldn't get them back.

_They were sitting in the tent, the tent which now seemed so big with him gone, the tent with the dim lighting and the two remaining occupants sitting, worn down, haggard, pale and with rings around their eyes, at the fold-out table. Hermione's eyes were red-rimmed, puffy from crying. There were dried tear tracks down the sides of her face. She would look up from, every so often, from her half-empty mug of lukewarm tea in order to look at the door. The door that Ron knew, with a pang of shame and regret, that he would likely never walk through. Harry was just visible in the shadowy corner of the tent, silent and grave as a cemetary statue, his scar painfully visible, warped and an angry, stinging red, against the pale flesh of his forehead. Every few moments he'd reach up a hand and rub it, looking upset at himelf for being in enough pain to need to try and soothe it. The scene changed..._

_Harry and Hermione at an old woman's house at Godric's Hollow, snow on the ground outside...a great snake emerging from the woman's neck, vile and monstrous, biting harry on the arm, Hermione screaming, flashes of light, then darkness..._

_Feverish, sweating, crying out from half-mad dreams, Harry, back at the tent, Hermione sponging his face with water, her expession tired and worn, too old for someone so young... A wand, Harry's wand, broken in two, the pheonix feather inside shimmering like a bit of liquid fire, scooped clean from the sun.._.

_A silver doe, dainty and shining, leading Hary to a frozen pool, in which lay a silver sword, heavy and ruby-set, like a sunken treasure...Harry diving in, naked save for his underwear and the locket, the locket that burned and choked him as his hand closed around the hilt of Gryffindor's sword..._

Ron swore, his breath catching in his throat as he sat bolt upright, eyes wide with fear. Sweat covered his body, his pajamas sticking to him like a second skin. He shuddered, trying to calm down. Turning around to see if he'd woken up Luna, panic seized him as he found the bed empty.

_Oh no. Dammit, Luna, you'd better not have gone off somewhere where I can't find you..._

He slid off the bed and headed out of the room; the door was adjar, which was worrying. Ron remembered closing it, as the house's structure had enough acoustics to let him know if Luna's father was out of bed as well. But the house was eerily silent, except for the soft footfalls he made as he walked down the hall. "Luna?", he called out. "Luna, come on out, this isn't funny!"

No answer. Ron shivered in the cold air, wishing that he had his Deluminator. It was dark in the Lovegood house, no lights on to be seen. No noise came from the other rooms, be they upstairs or downstairs. Ron silently opened each of the doors, peering into each room, but there was no sign of Luna. Mr. Lovegood was lying on the bed in the master bedroom, on his side, staring blankly at the deep purple wall in front of him. Ron stared for a moment, before shutting the door without a word. There was nothing he could do, at least for now.

By the time he'd searched the entire house, Ron had still not seen so much as a glimpse of Luna, and the sun was beginning to rise, watery and pale, beyond the horizon seen from the windows.

_Where could she have gone? I hope she didn't go outside, it's still too cold, and her jacket's still on the coatrack by the door. What if she gets sick?_

Ron turned at the staircase landing, thinking for a moment. There was_ one _place he hadn't checked yet...and if Luna was down there...

He shivered, though not from the cold this time. _I just hope I'm wrong._

But he knew he probably wasn't. That didn't stop him from hoping, though. Perhaps he could be wrong, as Hermione had often pointed out.

Heading off down the stairs, he hoped so.

He had known for years that Mrs. Lovegood liked to perform experiments, and so her husband had gifted her with a specially-made laboratory when they'd been married, as a sort of special wedding present. Ron had never been down there, his parents had always told him that to interfere with her work was dangerous, since much of the things she worked with were dangerous, highly reactive potions ingrediants.

If the situation had been different, Ron would have taken a moment or two to step back and admire the Lovegood laboratory. The room was impressive, a large, circular room with shelves extending all around, from floor to ceiling, filled with numerous colored stones, rocks, jars of powders, bundles of herbs and dried flowers and plants, dotted here and there with candles. There were stacks of papers on some of the lower shelves, covered in hastily scribbled notes in color-coded inks. A large, circular wraparound sink, divided by metal sheets into four different sections, stood in the center of the room, each sink "sink" section equipped with a metal shelf holding labeled bottles and containers, and pull-out tray that could be stored under each "sink" when not in use. A huge circular window, the windowpanes a rainbow of stained-glass depicting a soaring phoenix, the frame a deep cherry wood carved with motifs of wildflowers, looked to be the way to emit light into the room when candles were not lit. The ceiling was shaped like a dome, curving upwards to seem to support the stained-glass window, and the ceiling was painted a pale ivory, tinged with bronze and peach, hung with fairy lights and multiple lanterns of bluebell flames.

Off to the side was a wooden desk, painted a pale green with hints of bronze, with several open folders full of parchment, a half-full inkwell, and a quill, which has resting haphazardly on the edges of one of the pieces of parchment. The words on the page were hastily scribbled, and cut off abruptly at the end, as if the writer had suddenly gotten up to do something else. A few feet away was a huge, ornate steamer trunk, opened up to reveal layers and layers of twisting tubes, turning bits of clockwork gears, tiny models of odd creatures, and bottles of glowing, mysterious liquids. The top layer held a bizarre model of what looked to be Hogwarts, made out of numerous shiny metals that writhed and twisted on the surface, etching carvings and forming tiny inhabitants as parts dripped molten silver.

But he wasn't interested in the room itself; his attention was focused on the silent figure kneeling down beside the trunk, and the woman lying next to it.

Mrs. Lovegood was still dressed in the clothes she'd died in, a pair of faded, dark grey-green overalls with a striped lavender shirt underneath. Her hair was splayed out behind her head like a river of champagne, and her wand was still in her front overall pocket, just like all the times he'd ever seen her. There was paint all over her overalls, but here and there was a spatter of something else, something that fizzled and hissed in the half-light of the room. Ron could only assume that it was the remnants of whatever she'd been experimenting with, and he wasn't quite sure he wanted to know what it was.

Her mouth was open, slightly slack, as if she was about to take a breath, and her eyes were wide with a permanently frozen expression of surprise. The redhead shivered slightly, unwilling to keep looking into that dead, empty gaze, so much like Luna's had been only a few hours before. He held out his fingers automatically, gently closing her eyes, closing her mouth so that it didn't seem slack.

_There,_ he thought, _now she could be sleeping._

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew that was a lie too.

Luna was still there, kneeling beside the body, and knelt down beside her, automatically wrapping an arm around her skinny shoulders as they took in the sight before them. Ron shivered, though not from the cold air of the laboratory.

He wondered, not for the first time, what sort of chance he had of doing something good in this time.

Harry was still at the Dursley's, being treated little better than a house-elf, having grown up so far believing he was, essentially, worthless and abnormal.

Hermione was still friendless, unable to gain a solid relationship with other children, unable to express herself in any way that didn't involve showing off her knowledge.

Neither of his friends knew that they were magical yet, only that they could do things that others couldn't, and in Harry's case in particular, that was very bad.

Neville was stuck with a family that was determined to force him to show his magical skills, no matter how dangerous it was. His Gran refused to show him any sort of hint that she was proud of him. His parents were, for all intents and purposes, little more than vegetables, quiet shadows of their former selves, unable to properly acknowledge their only son.

And Luna was still staring with that horrible, broken, dead look.

He may have gotten the chance to go back, to try and defuse this horrible, tangled mess before the real explosion happened, but Ron knew, as he watched Luna cry silently beside him, that he hadn't gained anything.


	7. Chapter 5: Homeward Bound

**NOTE: PLEASE TAKE IN CONSIDERATION THAT THE HOUSE-ELF IN QUESTION WILL BE GIVEN A PROPER INTRODUCTION IN THE NEXT CHAPTER.**

**For anyone reading this, I need to give you a bit of a heads up regarding the newest addition to this tale. It's generally well known in the Harry Potter canon universe for people to know about S.P.E.W., and all the House-Elf rights issues, as well as of course the most famous House-Elves in the Potterverse: namely, Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher. Now, we all know, to put it lightly, that Ron and Hermione (at least until the seventh book) never really seemed to see eye-to-eye regarding the topic of House-elf rights, whether or not the should be freed, and if so, if they should be able to have fair, non-discriminate jobs with wages and proper clothing that won't cause them massive panic attacks. House-Elves, after all, are a servant race by nature, born and raised in Wizarding society (at least British Wizarding society, I'm not quite sure about other places) to tend to their masters' and mistresses' every need, want, and whim at the risk of otherwise inflicting terrible self-punishments. If "given clothes", which terminates the work contract and leaves them homeless, jobless, and disgraced, we've seen, at least from poor Winky's situation, that the punished House-Elf becomes terribly distressed, prone to fits of crying, self-pity, and self-reproach, and care very little, if at all, for their own well-being, quite possibly even less than when they were employed. If they don't have a proper master or mistress for a long time, like in Kreacher's case, they also seem to be prone malicious behavior, uncooperative attitudes, and a stagnant attitude towards anything that might constitute a change, unless given better treatment. **

**In regards to my own thoughts and opinions on the issue, I personally believe that House-elves, as they do like to work, would be better off staying as workers, but they should, by all rights, be in a properly safe, decent working environment with good benefits for themselves and a nice family to stay with, instead of masters or mistresses who think them inferior and treat them sub humanly (after all, in modern society, slave labor is considered illegal and rightfully horrifying). That way, they get to work how they like, with someone who treats them nicely. **

**Now, while Hermione was pro-House-Elf rights and completely for making sure they have decent conditions, Ron was quite the opposite, and with valid reason: he came from a family background that taught him that House-Elves liked to work, and that "being freed" would cause them a great amount of stress and emotional pain. (Winky was a prime example of this sort of "breakdown" in book four, given her appalling lack of regard for her own well-being after her dismissal by Crouch. Constant breakdowns, fits of crying, extreme verbal defending of her former master, and a powerful desire to go back to a household she was no longer welcome at...this seems to be typical "House-Elf given clothes" behavior, and it's quite sad, really. (The alcoholic behavior later on makes the situation all the more pitiful, seeing someone driven to drinking (even if it's only Butterbeer) because they lost the position in life that they considered everything.) **

**Thus, while he doesn't like the self-torture that House-Elves inflict on themselves for poor service or disobedience, he didn't agree with Hermione's passionate "S.P.E.W." campaign, partly because he knew that no self-respecting House-Elf in Wizarding Britain would agree to any of it. The House-Elves in Hogwarts are a prime example of why Hermione's "S.P.E.W." campaign would have very little positive impact, if even that: they are treated well, get good living conditions, enjoy their work taking care of the castle and its inhabitants, and are employed by someone who respects them. From that viewpoint, Hermione's idea of "freedom, clothes, and paid wages for all" is, logically, deemed radical, scandalous, and completely asinine. And really, I can't blame them: if you have what many House-Elves would consider "the good life", why in the name of Merlin's most baggy y-fronts would you want to stop, and be unemployed, disgraced, and essentially out on your rear? No one in the British Wizarding world would agree to take on a House-Elf that was freed, much less one that was free and wanted to be _paid_. The very idea would be dubbed completely insane. It would be like a slave going up to their new master and asking for weekends off and paid vacation: it simply wouldn't work. Dobby traveled the country looking for a job for over two years for a reason, after all.**

**But House-Elves are among the more ignored races of magical sentient beings, despite the fact that in many of the canon books we see that they have powerful magic, magic that can do things no wizard could do, including Apparating and Disapparating in and out of places where doing so is deemed impossible by wizarding magic (Kreacher leaving the Horcrux locket's cave when the place was charmed to prevent all Wizarding Disapparition), as well as charming magical portals (Platform 9 3/4 shut by Dobby) so that they won't let anyone through, using charms in a Muggle area that register as _wizard _doing the spellcasting instead of an elf, and even enchanting spell-resistant objects to go after specific targets (the bludger that broke Harry's arm in Second year). These beings have proved time and time again that they may be small, but they have immense power, which is outmatched only by their fierce loyalty to those they serve (Dobby, bless him, was a living, breathing embodiment of pure loyalty and friendship!).**

**Ron's family is impoverished, terribly overcrowded, and from the looks of Mrs. Weasley, seriously overtaxed as well. House-Elves are excellent help in such turbulent, chaotic environments, being able to help cook, clean, wash up, mend clothes, feed the chickens, de-gnome the garden, and many other possible things besides. And, as I recall, Ron didn't really get a proper "familiar" until Third year, seeing as Scabbers was really a creepy would-be-convict adult man who sold out his best friends, and Sirius doesn't give Pidgewigeon until the end of the year, when they get on the Hogwarts Express and ride home. House-Elves, being both such loyal and powerful beings, would be an ideal candidate for a companion for Ron to converse with, get some unseen help from, and explain his situation to (seeing as Luna and Mr. Lovegood are in some dire need of help in their current conditions, and Luna's the only other person he knows of that came back with him, Ron, quite logically, would still be needing someone to vent to about the insane condition of being a time-traveling seventeen-year-old stuck in an alternate time stream in his ten-year-old body).**

**Now, I'm NOT saying that this House-Elf is going to be rendered a servant or a pet, that would be stupid and cruel to the House-Elf; BUT, House-Elves have to come from SOMEwhere, and, chances are, there'll be a "runt" in the newest batch of babies. Seeing as the Ministry of Magic, although terribly corrupt, ignorant, arrogant and stupid, has to license all businesses dealing in the handling, buying, selling, and ownership of "non-sentient" beings sold for Wizarding use, I'm going out on a limb here and to use the AU status of this story to give this timeline's "MoM" Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures the ability to regulate the business of House-Elf ownership.**

* * *

Slowly, gradually, Ron snapped out of his dazed state, still with an arm around a now silent Luna. For several moments, he struggled to find his voice, casting about for something, _anything _to say that would help. Nothing came to mind that didn't sound faded, useless, and corny. In the end, he decided on silence, and hauled Luna to her feet, intent on getting her out of the lab. As she was pulled upright, Luna swayed slightly, her eyes still horribly blank. The remnants of earlier tear tracks were slowly drying, leaving thin, shiny strands across her pale cheeks, like gossamer webbing.

Both left the laboratory silently, not once looking back. Ron resolutely shut the image of Mrs. Lovegood's body away in his mind, trying to ignore the memory of coming upon the still, silent body, the body of someone he remembered as always being so full of love, so full of light and laughter that it was as if he'd witnessed some sort of terrible, out-of-place, half-remembered dream-turned-nightmare. The faint, repetetive _plink, plink, plink _of the melting castle resounded in his ears, burning like nails raking down a chalkboard. Every footstep they made sounded too loud, echoing in his ears painfully; Luna, still stoically silent, sagged against his shoulder, swaying dangerously on her feet when they crossed the threshold of the laboratory door.

Looking back on it, Ron was never quite sure how he managed to find the strength to pull Luna fully upright again, help her walk to the kitchen, and try to figure out how to make breakfast. Food had always been a source of comfort to him, and considering Luna hadn't even touched her hot chocolate yesterday, Ron knew she was probably going to be hungry.

Mr. Lovegood was not in the kitchen when they arrived; Ron had a sinking feeling that the eccentric man was still in his room, staring at the wall. Deciding to confront the older wizard later, he turned to Luna, who now sat, still and silent, in her chair at the table, gazing blankly at a knot in the wooden surface. He looked into her eyes, hoping for some sort of sign of life. Staring into that blank gaze, he saw a mind full of nothing he could understand. The feeling scared him, but only for a moment.

He knew the feeling too, after all.

Pouring water into the teapot and setting it on the stove, he turned up the heat and began searching the cupboards for tea bags. To his relief, there were a few packets of herbal tea left in a glazed clay honeypot tucked into a corner. Setting aside the tea bags ino several chipped mugs, he peered into the refrigerator in search of something edible to heat up or cook. The contents yielded only a jar of violently orange pickles, a Tupperware container of some kind of unidentifiable vomit green sauce with chunks of meat, and a half-dozen smaller jars of what appeared to be orange juice, although opening the jar revealed the liquid to be glowing faintly and emitting a smell of raspberries and mint ice cream. The milk carton was empty, and there was no sign of bread or eggs.

_Dammit, there's nothing in here that I can cook. Everything looks either radioactive, or mutated. _

"Well, Luna," he said, trying to inject some semblance of cheer into his tone, "looks like there's not much in the way of breakfast in here. Are you okay with just tea for now?"

Silence was his only answer; Ron resisted the urge to shake her, scream at her, anything to snap his friend out of her horrible, agonizing silence. For all the movement she showed, Luna may as well have been a life-size porcelain doll, left abandoned, broken, silent, at a doll's house table by an owner who would never come back.

"Tea it is, then."

The kettle shrieked to an ear-piercing degree as he pulled it off the stove, wrapping the handle in an old dishtowel to keep from scalding himself. As the boiling water filled up the mugs and clouded the air with steam, Ron kept up a constant stream of chatter, asking about the way the sky looked outside, if the Dirigible Plums were ripe enough to be picked yet (although the sign clearly said to keep off), what kind of vegetables were being grown in the garden, an on and on. The one-sided conversation felt painfully unnatural, but if he didn't speak, Ron knew that the house would be silent.

None of his ramblings had any affect whatsoever on the object of his attentions. The dead, blank gaze fixated upon the knot of wood at the table didn't so much as flicker once in recognition that he was speaking. Ron shivered slightly, trying to force down the lump in his throat, which seemed to have become impossible to remove and rendered his one-sided speech even more difficult.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the tea had finished steeping. Ron carried the mugs, one at a time, to the table, his hands shaking slightly from the concentrated restraint needed to keep himself in check. His friend was falling apart before his eyes, it was all he could do not to do the same.

"Here." The mug was placed before her, along with a half-full cup of milk, some tarnished spoons, and the sugar bowl. Luna didn't so much as blink in response, staring resolutely at the knot of wood, as if the mug of tea that Ron had placed over it didn't even exist.

He sat down in the chair beside her, reaching for the milk cup and dumping a few spoonfuls into his mug. "Luna, how do you want your tea? Milk or no milk? Do you want any sugar in it?"

There was no answer. The cup before the still, silent girl issued forth a cloud of warm, lavender-scented steam.

"Luna? Luna, are you listening to me?" Silence was the only answer.

"Luna, I said-"

"Be quiet."

He stared at her, bewildered. _Well, at least she's talking again, but why did she-_

"Stop it, stop it, stop it, don't look at me like that." Again, all he could do was stare.

"I mean it, just leave it, this isn't helping, leave me alone, you're just making it worse!"

Ron fell halfway out of his chair with shock, ears ringing from the force of the volume, as Luna suddenly turned to face him, the blank expression gone. "Stop it!", she muttered again, voice rising. Her eyes were wide, shining with the broken, flickering light from the creek, the light which had ignited into fire, wondrous and beautiful and ugly and terrible all at once."Stop looking at me like that, you're not helping, you can't help, it's too late for that, it's over and you couldn't do anything, _I_ couldn't do anything, it was all too _late-_"

"Luna, calm down a second, what's gotten into you-"

"Shut up!"

The floor was rumbling, the cupboards shaking, their contents ringing and clanging with the vibrations. The table wobbled, the legs cracking ominously, as the chairs began shaking as well. The ceiling light flickered on and off rapidly, threatening to explode. The kettle shrieked, rattling and moving as if an animal was trapped inside. The stove turned on, blue flames shooting into the air as the knob controls twisted back and forth. From the living room, Ron could hear the sound of glass breaking into thousands of pieces; the window had shattered.

"Luna...Luna, calm down, please, I want to help you!"

"You can't, you can't, you _can't-_"

The table burst apart into a flurry of wooden splinters; Ron felt the bits of impromptu shrapnel bite into his flesh, his palms and cheek stinging. Luna stared at him, her gaze wild with an untamable madness, glittering grotesquely. Pale fingers clutched the hem of her nightgown, staining the fabric a deep scarlet.

Ron took a deep breath, unsure of what to do. He'd never seen Luna lose control like this, she'd always been the calm one, the rock in the stream of unending, callous students at Hogwarts that changed, ebbing and flowing to the tide of the twisted Wizarding media.

"Luna..."

The girl before him shuddered, eyes still wide and crazed, and then the ceiling light burst apart, showering the room in a rain of broken glass.

He stared at her, consumed by thoughts, unable to move for fear of upsetting her further. Fear, concern, and pity coursed through him as he took in the sight of the shivering, waiflike wreck of a witch before him, still crying, her hands bloodied and cut, nightgown stained with bloodied handprints. Her feet were still bare, cut in several places from the glass and wood, slowly oozing dribbles of blood.

_Drip, drip, drip. _The kitchen sink was leaking. Drops of water fell, slightly out of rhythm, as Luna's feet bled out, washing the floor in a slowly spreading puddle of molten red. Slow, rasping breathing echoed in the dim, choking air as she stared, all at once like a statue again, lonely and yet beautiful, a little figure of ivory carved amongst the grief of a sorrowful sculptor. The only light in the room now came from the blue flames from the stove, casting everything in half-shadows, with a bluish-white pallor descending on the room, as if it was inhabited by ghosts.

Unsure of what else to do, or to say, Ron decided to use the blunt truth. "Luna, I'm here for you. You don't have to do this alone."

Then she dropped like a stone, a marionette whose strings had been cruelly cut short, and Ron was running forwards, arms outstretched before the thought of movement was even born.

He sat down on the floor, cradling her to his body like a newborn, her eyes still wide, the flames of that awful, broken light already dying down. She shivered in his arms, as if realizing for the first time that she only had her nightgown to keep warm. Slender, pale fingers reached out, the eyes blank once more, but now filling up with comprehension of her surroundings.

A feather-light touch, her fingers brushing across his shredded cheek, gentle yet stinging, like a butterfly alighting from the world of the dead. "You're hurt."

She said it as if it was as normal as the sky being blue, yet the strange, childish tone that tinted the short, two-word phrase rang with both surprise and worry.

"I know," he replied quietly, not trusting himself to speak above a whisper. "So are you," he observed, staring into her eyes, as if to check for any more madness lurking about.

"Yes, yes I am. Are you going to let go of me anytime soon?"

Ron pondered the question for a moment, turning it over and over in his mind. "No, I don't think I will."

Only a few days ago, the idea would have seemed strange, if not outright absurd. But that had been before _this. _

Arms still firmly wrapped around her, he slowly pulled them both upright, before studying Luna's bloodied, cut feet. _She can't walk like that, they're probably causing enough pain as it is. And I can't heal the cuts without making sure they don't have glass or wood in them from earlier. _

The solution, then, was simple. A single questioning look, to ask permission. A nod of silent acquiescence. He steeled himself for the grunt of pain that would surely follow, and then he slid his arms around, picking her up off the floor and into his arms, held like a bride. Luna obligingly held out her arms to encircle his neck, taking some of the weight off him.

He gave Luna a contemplative look, at the battered, emotionally-strung out girl with the large, wide eyes and hands that gripped at the back of his pajama shirt collar like a monkey.

_I'm awful at healing spells, and even if I was good at them, I don't have a wand to cast them with. Luna and I need to get patched up, but St. Mungo's is hours away, and I can't Apparate over there, I'm too young and they'll ask too many questions. _

After a few moments, the idea came to him. Gingerly, he walked out of the ruined kitchen, Luna clinging to him silently, and went to get help from Mr. Lovegood.

The man in question was still staring at the wall, but he started abruptly when Ron, wincing at the movement, rapped his bloodied knuckles smartly against the doorframe, alerting the older wizard to their presence.

He asked no questions, but took both of them to the side, wand out and waving in a complicated figure eight loop, the gentle olive green-grey light shining gently on the slowly closing cuts, bruises and blood shrinking and vanishing. Luna reached out, unlooping her arms from around Ron's neck to be held out in a silent plea to her father; the sudden imbalance nearly caused Ron to drop her, but after a second, the older wizard took Luna into his arms, holding her close. Luna buried her face into her father's shirt, trembling slightly.

Ron stared for a moment, feeling somewhat lost and cold without the warmth of his friend; somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling, sudden as it was, that he was intruding on something private. The urge to leave the room became suffocating, as if he was dirtying the scene with his presence.

Unable to resist the urge to flee, he muttered a quick, awkward good-bye to excuse himself, before darting away and down the hall, unwilling to stay any longer, at least for the moment.

The sharp rapping noise from the kitchen window drove the thought of the Lovegoods from his mind, as he peered through the kitchen doorway to see a small, slender fairy at the windowsill, clutching a disproportionately large scrap of parchment in a tiny grey-green hand, her sharp little grey eyes narrowed in impatience. Clearly, the fairy had been waiting for some time, and wasn't very happy about it.

Ron had seen the fairies of the Lovegood's vegetable garden only a few times, usually as small, blurry flickers of movement out of the corner of his eye, but he had seen more than enough to recognize Luna's handiwork upon the tiny being before him: the fairy wore what was unmistakably an acorn cap upon her head of wild emerald curls, the cap spattered with flecks of some sort of silvery, bluish, green-grey coloring that Ron knew, from childhood experience painting with her, was Luna's absolute favorite shade of paint.

The fairy flitted towards him, holding out the scrap of parchment, annoyance evident in every single bit of her modest three-inch size. Ron obligingly took the parchment from her hand, finding it covered in scribbles of ink, handwriting he recognized as his mother's work.

_Ron,_

_If you're reading this, we've gotten your letter and hope things have improved. Oh, that poor family, Xeno must be devastated, and I can't even begin to fathom the pain poor little Luna must be going through right now. She was a lovely woman, Selena. I knew that some of those experiments she did weren't always safe, but I never really thought she'd end up dead from them. The very idea of such a bright, radiant person gone...it's like hearing that the sun's gone out, and it's dark now, never to be warm and light again. Death is always makes such a powerful impact on those closest, and the hurt will be there for a long, long time, if not always._

_Even though this is such a painful time for them, please tell them that they're welcome to stay with us at the Burrow in the meantime, we'll help them out with whatever they need. Your father's already set up a sofa bed, and is working on Transfiguring Ginny's old crib into a bed for Luna to sleep in. Hopefully, a place to stay and some good food and company will help. Staying at that house is not a good thing for them._

_Love, _

_Mum_

For a moment, he stared at the parchment, turning it over and over in his hands, silently marveling at the fact that, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he held something from his home. In the world he'd left behind, he'd been unable to contact his family while on the hunt for Horcruxes with Harry and Hermione, and had left home with only what Hermione had packed for them. Though the packing and preparations had been thorough, he'd never really registered the fact that he'd left his home behind, gone from his family, the house he'd grown up in, and all the comforts of a settled, somewhat safe life. Hermione had provided them with supplies, but there were some things he'd left that he knew he would miss, like the warmth of his own bed with the violently orange Chudley Cannon blankets and coverlet, and the closet full of clothes that he knew would always be cleaned for him, and the stack of comics of _Marvin the Mad Muggle _that he'd shown Harry when they were twelve, and the tank that had once held frogspawn that would become a frog.

_But it wasn't really those things I missed. I missed the childhood they were part of. I missed the family clock ticking all the time in the background, and seeing the spoon hands turning round. I missed seeing Mum in the mornings, making breakfast and giving everyone hugs. I missed hearing explosions from the twins' bedroom as they made up pranking goods. I missed fighting with Ginny over the last piece of chocolate cake, and talking with Bill and Charlie about their jobs. I missed being able to go out to the shed and see Dad tinkering with the latest mad Muggle thing he'd taken from the town dump and hid from Mum. Merlin, I even missed Percy's annoying droning about cauldron thickness reports._

When he'd left his home, on a quest with his best friends to find and destroy Horcruxes and help save the Wizarding world in the process, he'd known, at least on a surface level, that there was no turning back. He'd left his childhood at the Burrow, because he'd needed to grow up in order to leave.

_But you didn't grow up enough to keep from leaving them, right?_, a voice muttered at the back of his mind.

_Shut up, I know I buggered it up already, I don't need reminders!_

_Still too stupid to realize you left behind the best part of your life? The Burrow, your family, your friends..._

_SHUT UP!_

_Why? I'm just saying the truth, after all. You ran. You left, and you ran, and ran, and ran away...away from everything that made life meaningful to you. _

_SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up...!_

"Shut up, shut up, shut up...!" A sharp, sudden sting at the bridge of his nose snapped him out of his stupor; blue eyes, previously squeezed shut in self-reproach and rage, opened up to see the scowling face of the fairy, who had evidently kicked him. Ron got the distinct impression that the tiny being knew what he had thought about, and wasn't in a pitying mood.

_Well, at least now I'm not in a self-depressive funk. Little bugger kicks hard, though, that stung._

Taking a moment to rub the stinging skin, he stuffed the parchment into a pocket in his pajama trousers, before turning on his heel and marching back upstairs.

_Hopefully, staying at the Burrow will do some good, this sort of behavior isn't healthy in the long run._


End file.
